Published in the Lucid Dream Exchange!

Birthday Box Watercolor by Kristen FoxI just got word that the Autumn Edition of the Lucid Dream Exchange is now online! I’m especially excited about this issue because it’s a special lucid dreaming, art, and creativity issue, and I’ve got a short article in it about my lucid dream inspired art activity!

You can read/download the entire issue in PDF form – just click on the following link and then click on the LDE cover image to open the file: http://www.dreaminglucid.com

Special thanks to Lucy Gillis, co-editor, for coordinating with me on this!

[tags]lucid dreaming, obe, dreaming, lucid dreams, out of body experiences, astral projection, articles[/tags]

Lucid Dreaming iPhone/iTouch App

Our friend and lucid dreamer/reality creator, Jen Beaven, has created an app for your iPhone/iTouch that helps you do a random ‘reality check’.  That’s a technique where you ask yourself at various points during the day if you’re dreaming, with the intention that you’ll also remember to ask yourself the same questions while you’re sleeping/dreaming, thus giving yourself the opportunity to become lucid in your dream!

The app works like this – when you refresh the page you get a random tip from the following categories:

  • Dream Actions are simple actions to perform which may give unexpected results in the dream state.
  • Dream Signs remind you to examine your surroundings for a sign you might be dreaming.
  • Dream Tips are hints and tips to improve your odds of having a lucid dream.
  • Dream To-Dos are things to try once you’re in a lucid dream.

For more information about getting this app for your iPhone or other Apple product, click here. (For 99 cents you also get the ad-free version with a few more options.)

The good news is that if you don’t have an iPhone, you can still get a widget that you can embed on your own website or blog, and there’s also a Google Gadget version you can put on your iGoogle home page too. Click here for more info on the widgets and to see the widget in action – refresh the page to get new examples.

I embedded the widget on my homemade home-page for my browser, so whenever I open a new tab, my homepage comes up and a new tip or idea comes up – very cool!  So check out Jen’s latest creation!

[tags]lucid dreaming, astral projection, out of body experiences, metaphysics, reality creation, conscious creation[/tags]

Imagination Practice and Expectation

Abraham suggests that when we imagine something we imagine it as if it were real, in front of us. We also have a Gradius & Ragon session (can’t find the exact one so I’ll paraphrase) with an exercise that suggests you look at something right in front of you, say, a pencil on your desk.  Get a feel for that pencil and it being solid, right there in front of you.  “Real”  Then apply that concrete, already existing, right in front of you feeling to whatever it is you want to create when you are imagining it.

If you’re trying to create something you have NOT yet experienced in your reality, imagine it first. Right. Ok.  But if it’s something we haven’t experienced before, and can’t reach into your left-brain/rational memories for that feeling tone or vibe, the feeling tone or vibe must come from your imagination instead.And if it’s something that seems more than a few steps away from your usual vibe you may need to work at it a little more too.

Meaning, the imagining itself might actually take a little practice.  Practice at getting the ‘feel’ right, which will be different from what we’re used to creating or even expecting, and also different for each of us. From my own experience, I’ve definitely had preconceived notions about how some desire would feel to me when I’d experience/create it finally, and I think the preconceived notions often got in the way of me connecting with the ‘true’ vibe or feeling tone of the desired creation itself when doing this imagining.  Connecting with the ‘reality’ of it, as it were – LOL.

Here’s a sort of funny example that occurs to me.  You know how EXCITED people are when they win, say, something like concert tickets on the radio?  Most of the time they scream with joy and go nuts.  Or at least, those are the only ones they play, so we might start assuming that’s how anyone would react.  But what if you’re the type that would just say, “That’s wonderful – thank you so much!”.  When you’d try to imagine yourself winning those concert tickets and screaming in joy it wouldn’t feel ‘right’ to you.  You’d have to connect with how the experience would truly feel to YOU and ignore the expectation set by your past experiences/memories with listening to other people win on the radio.

And beyond just memory, there have certanly been times when I’ve felt my left-brain processes have interfered with my attempts to imagine.  That is, when I had a belief that I couldn’t have something I wanted, the ‘can’t have’ thoughts would prevent me from connecting energetically with the feel/vibe of the desired creation.  They would even prevent me from being able to spend much time with my imagination at all.  Which, now that I’m thinking of it so specifically, makes perfect sense.  Because I’d be holding onto the vibe of “CAN’T” so much that I couldn’t touch “YES” hardly at all.  Even in my imagination. I can see where saying, “yes, that’s what you think, but I’m going to imagine it ANYWAY” would be one way around that block once you become aware of it.

So, having said all that, I’m off to spend some time in Imagination Practice!  This should be fun – heh.

[tags]conscious creation, reality creation, law of attraction, expectation, imagination[/tags]

Expectation as Goal and Gauge

I posted a response on our Conscious Creation discussion list which I thought would also be a good post in this blog….

Sue had posted this quote from Abraham (channeled by Esther Hicks): “The emotion you feel is always about the vibrational variance between where you want to be and where you are. If you’re out of balance, there are only two ways to bring yourself into alignment: Either raise your expectation to match your desire—or lower your desire to match your expectation.”

I replied:

Expecting to get what you want seems to be an indication that where you are and where you want to be are the same thing. The emotional experience of expectation feels very confident and knowing.

I think that aligning with the expectation of getting what you want can be an interesting challenge when you’ve been trained AGAINST having what you want (whatever you’ve been told you CAN’T HAVE and grew up struggling to get, or the like). After a while, you internalize the CAN’Ts and just struggle with it inside yourself, then it gets a bit harder to see because it seems like (and is) just a part of who you are at the moment. Soon, all you start to feel is negativity when you think about what you want, or stop knowing what you want altogether, instead of the good feelings or the desire/attraction itself – that does seem like one recipe for depression!

For myself, there’s been a loose process around dealing with this:

  • stop identifying with the negative emotion, in the moment, so you can really SEE it clearly for what it is and not just how things are.
  • catch the triggers that make you automatically react in that negative emotional way. Being around certain people, offhand remarks, environments, anything.
  • choose NOT to feel the negative emotions, even if you don’t know what else to feel at the moment.
  • choose to feel a different way, understanding that feeling the OLD way is NOT actually ‘natural’ even though it seems it is because you’ve been doing it so long.
  • choose to think/believe a different way, often uncovering what IS a ‘natural’ thought for you, buried under the opposite training. learn to trust yourself.
  • continue to catch triggers and use them to ‘massage’ yourself into a new perspective. Like catching yourself thinking when you’re supposed to be meditating, and just flipping back to meditation without chastising yourself or getting caught up in the drama of failure.
  • refinement on all of the above levels, repeating steps and process until you’re where you want to be.

I think our ability to align with our true desire, to expect what we want, is completely independent of any circumstances in our lives. In other words, we must choose to feel the expectation no matter what is going on around us, even if it’s the exact opposite, even while we still interact with our currently existing circumstances.  This is just another part of the process I described above. Sometimes we really WANT to be at the level of confident expectation, but we’re not yet, as it hasn’t all come together, and we can get depressed, tired of trying, tired of the ‘apparent’ lack of progress, etc. – these are just more negative emotions that we learn not to hold onto. Just let them go and return to where you want to be – sometimes that can be a struggle too.  (Another way to look at this is as a shift to being the creator of an experience/thing rather than someone who simply reacts to what has already been created.)

And how much can we REALLY expect? How much can changing our expectations really change our world, ourselves? Do we really expect to be able to eat chocolate cake and still lose weight? And what comes up for us when we decide we DO want to lose weight but also eat chocolate cake – beliefs about how our bodies work that are based on intimate self knowledge? Or based on current medical attitudes? Or based on what your mother taught you growing up? Beliefs about there being some things we can or can’t change or shouldn’t try to? And where’s that line between what we can change and what we can’t?  Who drew it there? And do we have the ability to erase that? Why or Why not?

[tags]conscious creation, reality creation, law of attraction, expectation[/tags]

What To Be

I haven’t written a post here in a long time. (Obviously!) On the outside, there was the cross-country move and adapting to all the new circumstances afterward. On the inside, there were waves of what can only be called ‘processing’ happening.

This morning, what I’m doing is thinking about this weblog, and what I’d been thinking it SHOULD be versus what it wants to be. A part of me thinks it should be full of juicy bits of advice, clever one-liners that are easy to pass around to inspire, deeply considered advice, and amazing stories of conscious creation gone wild – LOL. The Conscious Creation site itself is essentially a place to read about the basic concepts and how to start implementing them, so all of that information is already there, as well as in the archives for our old email list, which still exists and is readable/browsable, but is pretty much in stasis.

I think what I need to do is just forget all the SHOULDS and tune into my inner self and see what I WANT to post. I don’t know if it will seem boring, or disjointed, or repetitious or be a surprisingly interesting read. Or none of the above. Perhaps the little pieces will eventually illuminate a larger picture – I don’t really know. I suppose if I keep this up, eventually I’ll find out. 😉

[tags]conscious creation[/tags]